Research on the ultraweak photon emission from anti-cancer plants

doi:10.4236/jbise.2009.23026

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J. Biomedical Science and Engineering, 2009, 2, 155-157

Published Online June 2009 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/jbise

JBiSE

Research on the ultraweak photon emission from

anti-cancer plants

Ping Wu1, Xiang He1

1Dept. of Applied Physics, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, China.

Email: [email protected]

Received 8 February 2009; revised 21 March 2009; accepted 23 March 2009.

ABSTRACT

UPE (Ultraweak photon emission) is one kind of

a common phenomenon in biological organisms.

It contains a wealth of information of biological

functions. In this paper, single photon counting

system is used to measure UPE of some anti-

cancer herbal plants. For the p lants, the changes

of UPE under different water condition are stud-

ied and the varying laws of ultraweak photon

number with time are analysed. The results are

higher fit double exponential decay law.

Keywords: Ultraweak Photon Emission; Photon Count-

ing; Barbed Skullcap Herb; Pedate Pinallia Jackin-

thepulpit Rhizome; Cochinchnese Asparagus Root;

Fitting

1. INTRODUCTION

In 1920’s, A. G. Gurwitsch, a former Soviet Union’s

cell biologist, was the first to discover the phenomena

of the ultraweak photon emission from biological ob-

ject (UPE) during the period of the cell division of

onion root tip [1]. UPE was able to be carried on the

research until 1950’s because of the restrictions of the

experimental means. In 1951, B. L. Strehler, et al. [2]

observed the photon emission from green plants in-

duced by light, and this phenomenon is called “delayed

luminescence.” In 1955, the L. Coli group used the

high sensitivity photomultiplier, which just came out,

to detect the photon emission from the wheat, legumes

and corn at the germination process [3]. From 1960’s

to1970’s, the former Soviet Union scientists have re-

searched except on plant but also on animal tissue like

frog’s nerve and muscle, mouse’s liver and so on. They

discovered that UPE is different from ordinary biolu-

minescence, for example fluorescence and so on, but is

correla tive w i th b iolog ic al metab ol ism.

So far, many experimental results show that the pres-

ence of UPE in biological organisms including plants,

animals, etc. UPE is an intrinsic and spontaneous proc-

ess of biological organisms and is different from biolu-

minescence phenomena observed, for example, in fire-

flies or luminescent bacteria. UPE is not dependent on

any particular enzyme or protein. It is the reflection of

the general information of the biological function and

has inherence relations with the life processes such as

cellular metabolism, cell division, growth, death, muta-

tion and cell-to-cell transmission of information. So, the

ultraweak photons can transmit the information of bio-

logical objects and it is playing an increasingly impor-

tant role in the development of biological science.

About UPE mechanism now there is no conclusion.

There are two major kinds of explain separately in

chemistry and in physics. In chemistry, the main expla-

nation is “the mechanism of metabolize emission”,

which thinks that the oxidation of the unsaturated fatty

acid produce peroxide free radical. The peroxide in ex-

cited state can be form when peroxide free radical com-

pound, and then UPE will be generated when the perox-

ide withdraw from excited state [4]. In physics, F. A.

Popp, et al. put forward “the mechanism of coherent

emission” [5,6]. They think that UPE partly or wholly

originate from the highly coherent electromagnetic field

in biological system and the field is possibly the basis of

communication between living tissues. The F. A. Popp’s

research on the organisms of the light-induced delayed

luminescence indicate that the luminescence accord with

the law of hyperbolic attenuation. This is precisely the

important characteristic of coherent field [7]. But “the

mechanism of metabolize emission” and “the mecha-

nism of coherent emission” only can partially explain

some experimental results for UPE. This reflects the

complexity of UPE mechanism, as well as the limitation

which the people knew to it.

At present, the research on UPE also exist a lot of

important questions to be resolved, such as the mecha-

nism of producing UPE, the detection technology of

ultraweak photon and the interpretation information of

UPE and so on. In this paper, we detect the UPE from

some kind of anti-cancer plants by using photon count-

156 P. Wu et al. / J. Biomedical Science and Engineering 2 (2009) 155-157

ing system, and analyze the time varying law of biologi-

cal photon counting.

2. EXPERIMENT SYSTEM AND MATERIAL

2.1. Experiment System

The output current signal of the photomultiplier tube is

characteristic of the natural discretization under the

weak light illumination. The single photon counting

system makes use of the characteristic and adopt the

technique of pulse height screening and digital counting,

so it has high sensitivity. It can detect the very weak

photon information whose intensity of the optical flow

lower than the thermal noise level (10-14W) of pho-

tomultiplier under room temperature, and it can be used

for the measure of UPE. The structure of the experiment

system is shown in Figure 1. In measurement, the sam-

pling interval is 3 minutes, the integral time is 1 minute.

2.2. Experimental Material

The leaves of anti-cancer plant including Barbed Skull-

cap Herb, Pedate Pinallia Jackinthepulpit Rhizome and

Cochinchnese Asparagus Root are chosen as the meas-

ured samples. The UPE of the samples at different

growth status have be measured by the single photon

counting system and the correlation curves of the bio-

logical photon counting with time are described.

3. MEASUREMENT RESULTS AND DIS-

CUSSION

3.1. Measurement Results for Different

Situations

The UPE of the leaves for three plants in the normal

implantation situation and the situation of stopping wa-

tering a few days are measured separately and the dif-

ferences of UPE under different conditions are evident.

The measuring curves and fitting curves for the photon

counting of the samples with time are shown in Figure

2-Figure 4.

Figure 1. Structure of experiment system.

(a) Measuring curves of UPE (b) Fitting curves with double exponential decay

Figure 2. Measuring curves and fitting curves of Barbed Skullcap Herb.

(a) Measuring curves of UPE (b) Fitting curves with double exponential decay

Figure 3. Measuring curves and fitting curves of Pedate Pinallia Jackinthepulpit Rhizome.

050100 150 200 250 300

400

800

1200

1600 1-Normal implantation

2-Stoppin g watering 5 days

3-Stoppin g watering 9 days

photon counting

time (min)

050100 150 200 250 300

400

800

1200

1600 1-Normal implantation

2-Stopping watering 5 days

3-Stopping watering 9 days

photon counting

time (min)

Photon counting

system

Computer control

system

Semiconductor

refrigeration

system

Photomultiplier

Photoelectricity

conversion

Signal collection

and processing

Sample room

050100 150 200 250 300

400

800

1200

1600 1-Normal implantation

2-Stopping watering 3 days

3-Stopping watering 5 days

photon counting

time (min)

050100 150 200 250 300

400

800

1200

1600 1-Normal implantation

2-Stopping watering 3 days

3-Stopping watering 5 days

photon counting

time(min)

P. Wu et al. / J. Biomedical Science and Engineering 2 (2009) 155-157 157

050100 150 200 250 300

400

800

1200

1600

1-N ormal implantation

2-Stopping watering 5 days

3-Stopping watering 10 days

photon counting

time (m in )050100 150 200 250 300

400

800

1200

1600 1-Normal implantation

2-Stopping watering 5 days

3-Stopping watering 10 days

photon count ing

time (m in)

(a) Measuring curves of UPE (b) Fitting curves with double exponential decay

Figure 4. Measuring curves and fitting curves of Cochinchnese Asparagus Root.

Table 1. Fitting results of Barbed Skullcap Herb.

Double expo-

nential decay Exponential

decay Gaussian

function

Normal

implantation 0.97083 0.9187 0.90616

Stopping watering 5 days 0.96989 0.94243 0.93253

Stopping watering 9 days 0.95414 0.91233 0.90341

Table 2 . Fitting results of Pedate Pinallia Jackinthepulpit Rhizome.

Double expo-

nential decay Exponential

decay Gaussian

function

Normal im plantation 0.96815 0.88676 0.87291

Stopping watering 3 days 0.96843 0.92953 0.93457

Stopping watering 5 days 0.95613 0.93143 0.91942

Table 3. Fitting results of Cochinchnese Asparagus Root.

Double expo-

nential decay Exponential

decay Gaussian

function

Normal im plantation 0.9875 0.94895 0.9394

Stopping watering 5 days 0.98748 0.94 675 0.9352

Stopping watering 10 days 0.97057 0.93394 0.922

From the measurement results, it is clear that the in-

tensity of UPE from the samples display a marked de-

cline under the lacking water condition, an d the intensity

will further reduce along with the increase in the number

of lacking water days. This reflects the growth of plants

for water-dependent, in the lacking water condition, the

plants appeared th e decline of the internal functions.

Comparing of the fitting curves under the lack of wa-

ter in five days, it may be seen that the reduction of UPE

from Barbed Skullcap Herb slower than Pedate Pinallia

Jackinthepulpit Rhizome and Cochinchnese Asparagus

Root. This is related to their own growth habit. Barbed

Skullcap Herb has a certain water-retention capacity, and

its branches or leaves, which have been picked off and

exposed to the sun, can be survived after inserted into

moist soil. Pedate Pinallia Jackinthepulpit Rhizome and

Cochinchnese Asparagus Root are all delighted for moist,

so the lack of water is of more influences on them.

3.2. Emission Laws Discussion

In order to study the law of UPE from the samples, the

measured curves are respectively fitted with double ex-

ponential decay, exponential decay and Gaussian func-

tion. The results of three different fitting are shown in

Tables 1-3.

It is not difficult to see from the results in Tables 1-3,

the fitting of double exponential decay is the best of the

three, and it is different from the coherent theory that

thinks UPE accord with hyperbolic attenuation. So it

reflects that UPE is a very complex biological system,

not fully coherent mechanism but a variety of mecha-

nisms have a role in it. There have been some research

results shown that the dual-exponential decay law [8],

but is still very difficult to explain theoretically. One

view is that this is because there are a number of the

coherent system in biology and there are interaction be-

tween them. In order to reveal the nature of UPE, it is

required that a large amount of experimental and theo-

retical work to be done.

REFERENCES

[1] A. G. Gurwitsch, (1923) Arch Entw Mech Org, 100 (1),

11-40.

[2] B. L. Strehler and W. Arnold, (1951) J Gen Physiol, 34,

809-820.

[3] L. Colli, U. Facchini, and G. Guidotti, (1955) Further

measurements on the bioluminescence of the seedlings,

Experientia, 11 , 479-481.

[4] X. Gang, (1994) The ultrawesk photon emission in plant

and its application in agriculture, Physics, 9, 548-552.

[5] F. A. Popp, K. H. Li, W. P. Mei, et al., (1988) Physical

aspects of biophotons. Experientia, 44, 576-585.

[6] F. A. Popp, (1988) Biophoton emission, Experientia, 44,

543-544.

[7] F. A. Popp, Q. Gu, and K. H. Li, (1994) Biophoton emis-

sion:Experimental background and theoretical ap-

proaches, Modern Physics Letters B, 8 (21&22),

1272-1274.

[8] J. L. Chen and Z. G. Lu, (1999) Garlic Delaved Lumi-

nescence, Journal of Optoelectronics and Laser, 10,

365-367.